though it may be and it is certain they have not in all Ages known according to what is in the Prophesie of St. John what Jesus Christ will do next yet that still by the spirit of Prophesie as it were the Saints have been guided to seek for those things at the hands of God and Christ which he was about to accomplish Also that the Saints in Heaven before the day of Judgment have a share and an hand in Christs government of the world and that they have a knowledg by the Angels that are continually Messengers from Heaven to Earth of the great things that are done here And he that writeth the Epistle to the Reader maketh this Application of Mr. Goodwins Doctrine Now saith he what may we think the Saints in Heaven who within these ten years last past lost their lives in the Cause of Christ he meaneth the Army-Saints from the year forty-four to that of fifty-four who dy'd in maintenance of the Bad Old Cause are EMPLOYED ABOUT at this time they understanding by the Angels what great changes are come to pass on our Earth Those of whose Saintship we have better assurance though in a state of rest and light are esteemed by the Fathers but a kind of Free Prisoners not being acquitted by the publick Sentence of the General Judgment And their opinion who give them a Lieutenancy under God in the Government of the World before that day does recall to my mind the Argument used by that truly great man Sir Walter Raleigh in his own unhappy Case He pleaded that the grant of a Commission from the King did argue him to be absolved and that he who had power given him over others was no longer under a sentence against his own life Abraham and Isaac do not now rule us and it may be they are ignorantt of us which whilst I affirm I do not wholly ground my Assertion on the Text in Isaiah That soundeth otherwise whether we take it in its positive or hypothetical sense It s positive sense may be this Doubtless thou art our Father notwithstanding we live not under the care of Abraham or Isaac but are by many generations removed from them who therefore knew us not or own'd us not we being not men of their times we are their seed however though at a great distance and to such also was thy promise made And for the Hypothetical sense it may be this Be it supposed that Abraham knows nothing of us yet certain we are that thou art the God of Israel whose knowledg and care of thy people never faileth I admit here that the Saints pray for the Church in general that Angels are concerned in particular Ministrations but that Angels and even Saints have shares of the Government of the World though in subordination to God so as to be Commission-Officers under the King of Heaven and not only Attendants on his Throne and as it were Yeomen and Messengers of his Court the general condition of the Angels I cannot admit without peril of Idolatry This in my conceit is the great resemblance betwixt the Romanists and the Gentiles Both of them suppose the World to be ruled under God by several Orders of Daemons and Heroes though I have confessed already that they are not so exactly alike but that Rome-Christian may be distinguished from Rome-Pagan For the Gentiles so much hath been shewn already and it may appear further from the place of the Greek Historian cited in the Margent And for the Romanists that too hath already been manifested in part and shall be further declâ—…red and Rivallius in his History of the Civil Law or Commentary on the Twelve Tables does very honestly confess it He having commented on that Law which ordereth the worship of the Heathen gods both Daemons and Heroes letteth fall words not unfit to be here gathered up by us Christians saith he meaning those of the Roman Communion retain a Religion like to this for they worship God immortal and for those that excel in Virtue and shine with Miracles first with great pomp and inquisition they register them among the Deities or Saints and then they worship them and after that they erect Temples to them as we see in the case of S. John S. Peter S. Catherine S. Nicholas S. Magdalen and other Deities In this point then let us join issue and offer on our side the manifestation of these particulars First On what occasions this worship of ruling-Ruling-spirits came into the Church Secondly How it derogateth from the honour of God as Governour of the World Thirdly How it derogateth from the honour of Jesus as the Mediator and King ordained by God First For the occasions of this Worship I conceive them to be especially these two The Celebration of the Memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and the compliance of the Christians with the Northern Nations when they invaded Italy and other places in hope of appeasing them and effecting their conversion First I reckon as an occasion of this Worship the celebration of the memory of the Martyrs at their Tombs and Monuments and Reliques and in the Churches sacred to God in thankfulness for their Examples The thankful and honourable commemoration of the Martyrs was very ancient and innocent at the beginning For as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna concerning the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp testifies They esteemed the bones of the Martyrs more precious than Jewels They kept their Birth-days that is the days of their Martyrdom on which they began most eminently to live they pursu'd them with a worthy affection as Disciples and Imitators of Christ but they worshipped none but Christ believing him to be the Son of God But laudable Customs degenerate through time And this in the fourth Century began to be stretched beyond the reason of its first institution as appeareth by the Apostrophe's of St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzen and others of that Age. Afterwards the vanity of men ran this Usage into a dangerous extreme and those who had been commemorated as excellent and glorified Spirits and whose Prayers were wished were directly invoked and worshipped as the subordinate Governours of Gods Church This Veneration of the Martyrs which superstition thus strained was occasioned by the Miracles which God wrought where his Martyrs were honoured Times of Persecution at home and of Invasion from abroad required such aids for the Encouragement of Catholick Christians and the Conversion of Infidels and misbelievers Thus in the days of St. Austin in whose Age the Getae or Goths sacked Rome and many of the barbarous people imputed the present misfortunes of Italy to the Christian Religion God pleased to work Miracles at the Bodies of the Martyrs Protasius and Gervasius in the City of Milan Thus as is reported by Procopius and Egnatius he miraculously saved those Christians at Rome and Pagans also both in the time of Alaricus and Theudoricus who
things and Brass and Iron because they were instruments of War and Ivory because it was the Tooth of an Elephant dead already or obnoxious to death But at last he concludeth from what reason I know not that an entire Tree or Stone might make a Mercury or an Image of a Demon. For the Europeans were not so costly and pompous in their Images till the Conquest of Asia the Fountain of Luxuries But though Platonists contented themselves with inward Ideas yet all the Gentile World did not but divers of them made and worshipped external representations of God the Creator So did the Egyptians who represented their supreme Cneph though diversly as appears from the description of him in Porphyry and his Image in Cartari So did the Greeks Porphyry himself confessing that they worshipped God in the Image of a man but making an excuse which Statuaries and Worshippers seldom thought of By God he means the supreme Deity and not some one only of the Divine Powers for he mentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself and not only Divine Virtues in offering his reason for their worship by Images He there alloweth the Deity to be invisible and he yet thinks him well represented in the form of a Man not because he is like him in external shape but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that which is Divine is Rational That was not the common Cause but an inclination to a sensible Object and an apprehension of humane Figure as that which was most excellent and which belongeth to a King and Governour under which notion in the grosser Idea of it their reverence of earthly Potentates had pictured God in their heads When Origen objected to Celsus the vanity of worshipping the invisible God in the visible form of man Celsus neither denieth the matter of fact nor apologizeth after the manner of Porphyry but retorteth the objection on the Christians who professed that man was made after the Image of God And Origen observeth that Celsus did not understand how to distinguish here betwixt being the Image of God and being made after it And that he ignorantly cited the Christians as saying “ That God made Man his Image and an appearance like himself And at this day Pagans when they entertain a Phantasm of God they are most commonly Anthropomorphites A very late and principal Actor in the ruine of the Town of Sacoe in New-England was an Enthusiastick Indian called Squango who some years before pretended that God appeared to him in the form of a tall Man in Black Clothes Now the Gentiles worshipping such Ideas or external Images as forms of God do misplace his Honour by paying their relative veneration to Objects which were not like him but infinitely unworthy of him They turned the Glory of Gods Essence into vile and despicable similitudes A worse sort of Idolatry still if worse can be were those Gentiles guilty of who by Images such as those of Baal and Pan adored Nature or the Sun as the supreme God The very Prototypes here were Idols So that in this kind of worship both the ultimate and intermediate the direct and the relative Honour of God was devolved on the creature PART 7. Of the Idolatry of the Gentiles in their worship of Demons A Second branch of the Idolatry of the Gentiles even of their Philosophers and men of deep disputation was the worship of Demons In this worship they were Idolatrous four ways First By worshipping Demons as Powers which under God had a considerable share of the Government of the World by Commission from him Secondly By worshipping Demons which were Devils or wicked and accursed Spirits Thirdly By worshipping the Images of such Demons Fourthly By their immoderate officiousness towards these inferior Deities which left them little leisure for attendance on the supreme God First The Gentiles committed Idolatry by worshipping Demons as Powers which with subordination to God did by his allowance manage a great part of the Government of the World They did not deny the supremacy of God but they imagined that he ruled not the World by his immediate Providence but by several Orders of Demons and Heroes as his Substitutes and Lieutenants Such as these were the Twelve Angels or Presidents which the Egyptians believed to govern by Ternaries the four Quarters of the World In the Flaminian Obelisk the supreme Momphta or supramundane Osiris is represented as ruling the Twelve parts of the World by Twâ—…lve Solar Demons in the form of Twelve Hawks that is of Eagles for of that kind were the sacred Accipitres of that Country There as likewise in Greece and Italy several inferiour Deities were appointed over several places persons and things He that is not otherwise furnished may read in Kircher of the Genius of Fire Air Water the Earth Agriculture of the Clouds the Sun and Moon of Heat and Moisture and of Fourty eight Asterisms as the stations of Fourty eight Deities Pythagoras and Plato themselves were in this point Authors of egregious Idolatry Pythagoras invented or rather learned from Egyptians Chaldeans Thracians Persians his two Demons or Principles the one good the Parent of Unity Rest Equality Splendor the other evil the cause of Division Motion Inequality Darkness for such were the Terms which his School used in representing their nature And these became Objects of much hope and fear which ought to have been moved not by mens devices but by considerations taken from the Almighty Power Justice and Goodness of God who is one Plato seemeth to have ascribed much both of the frame and of the government of the World to the Genii next to God By Principles whom he esteemed highly divine but not by such as he judged three Subsistences of the same supreme numerical Substance If that had been his Creed as some would have it who can find in him the mysteries of the Athanasian Articles the earliest Hereticks who denied the coequal Divinity of the Son of God and therefore believed in another kind of Logos had never come in such numbers out of his school the place from whence the Fathers fetch them With them agreeth Petavius that learned Jesuit and in this Argument as learned as in any other He saith it is most evident concerning Arius that he was a very genuine Platonist Plato's principal Idea or Logos was distinct in number and nature from his supreme Cause or God And those who follow the Faith of the Nicene Fathers reason not with consistence whilst they suppose this Idea to be the second Person and yet find in Plato such distinctness of Being and which to me seems very remarkable a plain denial of his Generation It is true that Plato cited by Porphyry does call the second Principle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word which is the Workman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first
numbered Amongst them beyond the Seas I will name only Danaeus and Hottinger Daneus in his Appendix to the Catalogue of Heresies written by St. Austin recounteth the Hereticks who had offended as he thought in particular manner against the several precepts of the Decalogue And under the second Commandment he placeth the Simonians the Armenians the Papists and some others as notorious violaters of it Hottinger distributeth the false worship of the Papists into six kinds of Idolatry under the Greek names of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bread-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Marian-worship to wit that of the Blessed Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Saint-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Angel-worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Relick-worship and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the worship of Images PART 2. Of the mitigation of the charge of Idolatry against the Papists THE learned Hugo Grotius especially in his Annotations on the consultation of Cassander in his Animadversions on the Animadversions of Rivet and in his Votum pro Pace The learned Mr. Thorndike in his Epilogue and in his Just Weights and Measures Curcellaeus in his Epistle to Adrian Patius These three together with some others have pronounced a milder sentence in this cause though they approved not of such Invocation of Saints and worship of Images as is practised in the Church of Rome But it is not my design to decide the controversie by the greater number of modern Authorities but rather to look into the merits of the cause And this I purpose to do so far only as Angels or rather Saints and Images are the Objects of this Disquisition Of Relicks and the Sacramental bread I forbear to say more than that little which follows For the first that which will be said concerning the worship of Images will help us sufficiently in judging of the worship of Relicks If they be made Objects of Religious adoration if they be honoured as pledges of Divine protection if they be trusted in as Shrines of Divine virtue at adventure and in all ages they become as the Manna which was laid up for any other than the Sabbath-day useless to the preservers offensive to God and unsavory to men of sagacious Noses Concerning that substance which after Sacramental consecration appeareth as Bread that excellent Church in whose safe communion I have always lived doth still call it Bread For the Priest after having consecrated the Elements and received the Communion himself in both kinds is required by the Rubrick of that Office to administer to others and when he delivereth the Bread to any one to use this Form The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy Body and Soul to Everlasting life Now a Discourse concerning the worship of that Substance which appeareth as Bread will in effect be a Discourse about the Corporal presence of Christ under the shews of that creature and run the Disputant into another Question which hath been industriously sifted by Thousands Neither are the printed Volumes touching this subject few or small There is a great heap of them written by the learned Messieurs Arnaud and Claud and Monsieur Aubertin hath obliged the World with a very large and laborious work about Transubstantiation in which may be seen the sense of the Ancients Forbearing then any further Discourse about the Worship of Relicks or the Sacramental bread I proceed to the Worship of Saints Angels and Images inquiring how far the Church of Rome doth by her Veneration render them Idols At the entrance of this Inquiry the trueness of her Faith in one God and three Persons is to be acknowledged and observed The Creed which is formed by order of the Council of Trent beginneth with the Articles of that of Nice though it endeth not without Additions And Dr. Rivet in his Reflections on those excellent Notes with which the acute Grotius adorned the consultation of Cassander doth in this point own the Orthodoxy of the Roman Faith In the Article of the Divine Trin-unity there is nothing saith he controverted betwixt Papists and Protestants And thus much is true if spoken of the generality of them for they herein adhere to Catholick Doctrine Thus do the Protestants of the Church of England but all do not so either here or beyond the Seas who commonly pass under the name of Protestants Curcellaeus for instance sake is called a Protestant yet may seem no other than a Tritheite as may appear by the first of those four Disputations which he wrote against his sharp Adversary Maresius The Romanists then professing the true Catholick Faith in the Article of the blessed Trinity and owning the second Synod of Nice which though it favoured Images so very highly yet it ascribed Latria to God only they seem injurious to them who do not only charge them with Idolatry but also aggravate that Idolatry as equal to the false Worship of the most barbarous Gentiles They seem unjust I say in so doing unless this be their meaning that the least degree of that crime under the light of Christianity be equal to the greatest under the disadvantages of Heathenism It is certain that the Romanists who worship the true God do not worship Universal Nature or the Sun or the Soul of the World in place of the Supreme Deity as did millions of Pagans Also for the Angels which they worship they justifie only the adoration of those Spirits who persisted in their first estate of unspotted Holiness and they renounce in Baptism the Devil and his Angels after the manner of the Catholick Church And when an Heathen is by them baptized the Priest after having signed him first on the Forehead and then on the Breast with the sign of the Cross does exhort him in this Form Abhor Idols Reject their Images But the Gentiles sacrificed to Devils and to such who by the light of nature might be known to be evil Daemons because they accepted of such Sacrifices as were unagreeable to the justice and charity and piety of mankind Sacrifices vile and bloody such whose smoke might be discerned by a common nostril to smell of the stench of the bottomless pit Yet some of the Heathens expresly denied the practice of such worship and made to the Christians this following profession We worship not evil Daemons Those Spirits which you call Angels those we also worship the Powers of the Great God and the Ministeries of the Great God For Hero's they worship those only whom they believe to have professed Christian Religion and to have been visible Members of the Catholick Church For into that whatsoever particular communion it was which afterwards they visibly owned they were at first Baptized Whereas the Gentiles worshipped many who had been worshippers of false gods Such worshippers were Castor Pollux Quirinus among the Romans These first worshipped false Deities and were afterwards worshipped themselves with the like undue honour
was not come to any determinate belief concerning the Stars whether they were Gods or only the Statues of them But upon supposition that they were Statues the part to which he is most inclined he would have them honoured beyond all Statues on earth as being made such by a Divine Power Secondly The Gentiles were guilty of Idolatrous Worship in making some at least of the natural Statues of God voluntary and authoritative disposers of good and evil under God in the World though not as the supreme dispensers of them They believed the Stars to be animated at least with an assistant form and as Maimonides reporteth of them created by God for the Government of the World And we receive it upon the valuable Authority of Garcilasso de la Vega that the Ynca's of Peru adored the Sun as the visible Deity by which the greater God who was invisible ruled this World A due confideration of this Fancy amongst the Gentiles leadeth us to the true Original of Astrology and to a right account of Talismanick Statues The present Astrology pretendeth to be Natural and Philosophical and to solve the effects it foretelleth if any it doth besides those of Light and Shadow as in Eclipses by the mechanical influence of the Stars which variously combine their light and heat But the Egyptian Chaldean and Grecian Astrology was in truth an Astrological Magick built upon the hypothesis of their Demons and the Heavens which they governed And they did not think that the Stars wrought a mighty effect or impregnated a Talisman by their proper virtue but as they were either Intelligences themselves or divinely influenced and directed by the Demons which resided in them and governed part of this lower World The Chaldeans assigned Twelve Gods as Governours of the year and apportioned to each of them one sign in the Zodiack To these they added Thirty Auxiliary Gods in Thirty Stars of which Fifteen were to have inspection on things below the earth and Fifteen above it And in the Kalendar of Julius Caesar each God had a Month under him and in it the several Constellations Juno governed January Neptune February Minerva March Venus April Apollo May Mercury June Jupiter Quintilis or July Ceres Sextilis or August Vulcan September Mars October Diana November Vesta December At this day the Astrological Judgments refer to demonology Thus Saturn the severe Demon is made to signifie malicious persons Mars the Bloody Demon furious proud valiant persons and by their Influence to dispose to such Qualities The Horoscope or Ascendant is made the principal of all Angles or if not that then the Culmen Coeli by Ptolomy and this judgment at first came from the worship of the Sun the principal Demon and most reverenced in those Angles In this worship then although subordinate The Gentiles placed Gods Authority where God himself had not done it and their Hopes and Fears and Thanks respected certain Creatures when they were due to God dispensing good and evil immediately by himself or if by them doing it by them as ministerial Causes not as sharers in his Government But of this more when I come to consider their worship of Demons of which the Stars themselves were one sort to some of them whilst they ascribed to them a high degree of perception and voluntary Power They thought of the Sun as of an Archangel though the Disciples of the Philolaick Systeme called it only the Organ of God and the Divine Harp by reason of the Harmony which its motion gave to the rest of the coelestial Bodies Again they erred in their worship about the artificial and instituted Statues of God Some of these Statues were possibly at first no more than monumental Pillars and Records of some extraordinary work of God discerned to be the effect of his finger by proof of sufficient Reason And so far the Gentiles were commendable as well as Jacob of the Line of Abraham For it is the nature of true and grateful devotion to retain and propagate the memory of Gods Acts which by the eminent Wisdom Mercy Power and Justice of them are proper for the exciting of admiration But I cannot go on in praising them for the honour they gave to other kinds of Statues which their fancy erected to the supreme God Of these some had less Art bestowed on them being great pieces of Wood or Stone without any Imagery of Man or Beast of Fish or Fowl carved or painted on them Some regular figure they sometimes had as that of an Egg which they supposed in many things and particularly in its figure to resemble the World Such Statues they worshipped two ways first as the Symbols of Gods especial presence Secondly as pledges of his favour to them wheresoever he was so long as they held them in possession and both ways they egregiously offended They offended by worshipping such Statues as the Symbols of Gods especial presence For thereby they ascribed the relative honour due to Gods true Shechinah to an Object which was exalted to that Divine condition not by his approbation but by their fancy And if their fancy was moved to this false estimation by some amazing effects wrought before them upon the performance of their Religious Rites they were Idolatrous in that case by honouring the power of Demons asGods Omnipotence For God permitted evil Spirits to seduce those Pagans by strange and uncommon operations wrought at their Statues who refused to live in the use of their Reason Further They transgressed in using Statues as the pledges to assure them of Gods favour so long as they remained with them Such were the Ancilia and the Palladium introduced by Numa amongst the Romans He did not celebrate them as Statues in which God dwelt but as secret pledges of Empire And this conceit also begat Idolatry amongst them for they gave that honourable trust due to God and his Shechinah and the pledges of his favour to things devised by politick men and such as God neither formed nor sent nor appointed as Instruments of defence amongst any people Other Statues they used as Images and representations of the supreme God This practice Macrobius doth not deny but he denieth it to be Antient And it is plain by his Context that he referreth to Plato and to the Platonick notions which exalted God above all the parts of Nature And for Plato it was agreeable to his principles to abstain from all representations of God whom he believed to be incomprehensible Viretus saith of him that seeking after some matter fit for the Image of God he could find none proper for that Divine purpose But he here committeth a double mistake For in the place which he meaneth Plato speaketh not of any matter for the Image of God but for the Statues of the Gods and at last he pitcheth upon certain materials for that use The Philosopher thought Gold and Silver unfit because they were invidious
Lord Simmias and Socrates in some sort consenting to him turn his sentence into the plural of Lords and Gods Julian likewise though he professed the belief of one true God yet he assigned several Countries and Cities to the care of several Tutelar Gods So we find in Porphyry certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or God 's that were conceived to be Presidents of Regions such amongst whom the Government of the lower World was parted The Gentiles indeed did not wholly exclude the supreme God but they worshipped him as one who had not reserved unto himself the greatest share of the Government Hence is it that we find among their ancient Inscriptions many such as that remembred by Elmenhorstius TO JUPITER THE BEST AND GREATEST Deity AND TO THE GENIUS or Demon OF THE PLACE They thought of the supreme Jove but they seldom thought of him without his Deputy Such Philosophy concerning the Lieutenancy of Demons is at this day on foot in China There the Litterati or those of the Sect of Confusio own one God and though they do not reverence him with any solemn worship as if he were a kind of unconcerned Epicurean Deity yet they have Temples for Tutelar Spirits The Sect of the Tausi also acknowledg one Great God and other lesser Ones that is Vicegerent Demons The same sort of Philosophy is found amongst the Benjans in the Eastern India The Sect of them called Samarath though it believeth one first Cause which created the World yet it assigneth to him Three Subftitutes Brama Buffiuna and Mais Brama they fay hath the disposal of Souls which he sends into such Bodies as Permiseer or the supreme God appointeth for them whether they be the Bodies of Men or Beasts Buffiuna teacheth the World the Laws of its God He hath also the oversight of Provisions for common life and advanceth the growth of Wheat Herbs and Pulse after Brama hath indu'd each of them with Souls Mais exerciseth its power over the dead This looks to me like a Tale of Jupiter Ceres and Pluto This Opinion of the Gentiles which ascribeth so much of the Government of this World to Demons as Gods Commissioners in certain Precincts and as Superintendents over Places Persons and Things is manifestly contrary to the tenor of the Scriptures They teach That God is the great disposer of Good and Evil in all Cities and Places and that his Providence extendeth to the fall of a little Sparrow and of a lesser thing than that an hair of our head That sheweth us how he used great importunity for the turning of Jew and Gentile from the confidence which they placed in their Genii This saith St. Cyril he would never have attempted if they had been Presidents of his own appointment His Angels minister before him but they do not properly govern under him much less is that true of Superexisting Souls The Angels of Graecia and Persia were such Spirits as did at that time serve his will in that particular employment But we have no cogent reason I think to perswade us that they always enjoyed a setled Lieutenancy over those Countries It was a rash conclusion which Vatablus drew from those Visions of Daniel to wit that to every Nation was assigned an Angel as President over it The whole of that Discourse in Daniel is a Vision and a representation of Heavenly things in a Scene upon Earth And they who make particular application of every circumstance without due attention to the main design of it forget that they confound Earthly and Heavenly things and lay their gross absurdities of fancy at the door of the Spirit of God Such for instance sake would they be who should think from this Vision that an Angel toucheth Gods Prophets with an hand at what time he inspireth them because Daniel so expresseth himself as if it were so done to him or who should believe that a good Angel ordained by God to comfort his Prophet could be detained by an evil one for one and twenty days until he prevailed against him by the assistance of Michael because the Scripture useth such an â—…umane Image and alludeth to the impediments of good men on earth who are not equal in power and motion to the ministring Angels who are quick and vigorous as Spirits or Winds and flames of Fire On such quickness and vigor God serveth his Purposes by the temporary Ministry of Angels but by Himself still and not by them as setled Delegates He dispenseth favours and severities Accordingly God inviting the Jews to renounce their Genii or inferior Deities and Patrons and not meerly to turn from evil Angels and to apply themselves to good ones promiseth by himself to send them that worldly plenty which they had sacrilegiously ascribed to their Idols And St. Paul endeavouring to draw the Lycaonians from their Vanities remindeth them of the testimony which God had given them of his Providence in sending them fruitful seasons This if it had been done by Commissioned Demons the Gentiles might have abated the force of the Apostles argument which proveth the care of the supreme God by the supplies of outward blessings The same St. Paul hath left us another Text most worthy of our attention in which he confirmeth the Government and the Providence of the supreme God rejecteth the Lieutenancy of Demons and owneth Christ alone as the Substitute of the Father Though there be said he such as are called Gods though there be many Superior and many Inferior Baalim Gods or Lords yet to us Christians there is but one God and one Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true God and Eternal life He is Gods Vicegerent who is the Everlasting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Father and not the Platonick Demon called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that of the Valentinians which together with their Logos made the second Conjugation of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first whence they came being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mind and Truth If then God by his Providence dispenseth immediately Good and Evil if his care reacheth to things below the Moon whose Orb some made the limits of it with equal vanity and boldness whilst others with Maimonides allowed a Providence over man but not over beasts If he useth his Angels as ministring not governing spirits as messengers of several kinds and not as Commission-Officers of his Court and administrators of the Affairs of his Kingdom as the Attendants ordinary or extraordinary of his Substitute Jesus Christ but not as fellow-Viceroys if he thus far only useth his Angels and it may be useth not departed Souls so far as this amounts to it is plain Idolatry to worship Demons as did the Gentiles in that quality of divine Lieutenants For from them they expect good and evil them they fear them they thank When God sendeth fruitful Seasons and by them Plenty they send
up their acknowledgments to the Queen of Heaven When God healeth them they sacrifice to AEsculapius as to him that removed their distemper from them This is a very great Iniquity and the common grounds or occasions of it are highly unworthy of the true God For most of them who believe not his immediate Providence do measure his actions by those of worldly Potentates They conceive him out of state to do little by his own person or out of ease and softness to commit the management of his affairs to others both by temporary command and by standing Commission As if the greatest variety of business could distract or weary him who is Infinite in Knowledg and Greatness and Power Thus St. Cyril judged of them who substituted lesser Deities under him that was supreme He thought that they impeached God of Arrogance or floth or want of Goodness which envieth none the good it can do And Isaiah tacitly upbraideth those who distrusted his Providence of the like vile opinion concerning him whilst he saith of the Creator that He fainteth not neither is weary Secondly The Gentiles were Idolaters through the worship they gave to such Demons as were evil spirits It is true that Plato owned no inferior Deities but such as were by him esteemed good He maintaineth this in his Tenth Book of Laws and St. Austin confesseth it to be his judgment He saith in his Phaedo That none were to be registred among the gods but such who had studied Philosophy and departed pure out of this life When he speaketh of Demons who afflict men he is to be interpreted rather of good Spirits executing Justice than of evil Angels venting their malice But whatsoever his opinion was it is most evident that the generality of the Heathens worshipped such Demons as were morally malignant And such Porphyry esteemed those Genii who had bloody Sacrifices offered to them The Gentiles sacrificed to Devils to the Powers of the Kingdom of Darkness which were not only not God but enemies and professed Rebels against him They were in Porphyry's account Terrestrial Demons such who had gross Vehicles and consequently were of the meaner and viler sort of their Genii and as they love to speak sunk deepest into matter Psellus and Porphyry represent them as united to a body of so gross contexture that they could smell the Odors of the Sacrifices and be fat with the steam of human blood Lucian in his Book de Sacrificiis abounds with pleasant or rather to them who pity the decays of human nature with very sad stories of the Revels of Demons Whether they were Terrestrial ones or not I here forbear to dispute but I conclude concerning them that they were evil Their nature shews it self by the services which they accepted by the persons whom they have favoured and by the appearances and wonders with which they sometimes encouraged them The Rites with which they were worshipped were bloody rude unclean such as an honest man would be ashamed to observe Porphyry though a Gentile hath recorded many of the bloody Sacrifices offered by the Rhodians Phoenicians and Graecians and he telleth of a man in his time sacrificed in Rome at the Feast of Jupiter Latialis The like barbarity was commonly used in the worship of Moloch and Bellona And he must have such a measure of Assurance as will suffer him no more to blush than his Ink who writes down all the Obscenities used in her worship whom they usually called the Mother of the Gods Origen telleth Celsus concerning the Christians That they had learned to judg of all the Gods of the Heathen as of Devils by their greediness of the blood of their Sacrifices and by their presence amidst the Nidors of them by which they deceived those who made not God their refuge And in another place he proveth this truth out of their own Histories and he instanceth particularly in their Deity Hercules and he objecteth against him his immoral love and that vile effeminacy which their own Authors record I will not tell over again their foolish stories so very often told already but offer to the Reader a Relation of fresher date out of Idolatrous America In Mexico saith an Author who had sojourned in that City the Heathens had dark houses full of Idols great and small and wrought of sundry Metals these were all bathed and washed with blood the blood of men the walls of the houses were an inch thick with blood and the floor a foot The Priests went daily into those Oratories and suffered none other but great Personages to enter with them And when any of such condition went in they were bound to offer some man as a Sacrifice that the Priests might wash their hands and sprinkle the house with the blood of the Victim With such Sacrifices no good Angel could be pleased wherefore the worship of such being an honour done not to God or his Ministers but to the Devil and his Angels who live in perfect defiance of true Religion is an Idolatry so detestable that I have not at hand a name of sufficient infamy to bestow upon it PART 8. Of their Idolatry in worshipping the Images of Demons THirdly The Gentiles were Idolaters in worshipping the Statues or Images of Demons or Heroe's either as those Powers were reputed the Deputies of God or as they were really evil spirits The Religious Honour given to the Prototype was Idolatrous and therefore the Honour done to the Image respecting the Prototype was such also So he that bows towards the Chair of an Usurper does give away the honour of the true Soveraign because the external sign of his submission is ultimately referred to the Usurper himself The Honour which the Gentiles did to their Statues redounded generally to their Demons for their Theology did not set up such Images whatsoever vulgar fancy or practice did as final objects of worship or Gods in themselves It set them up as places of Divine Residence wherein the Genii were thought to dwell or to afford their especial presence in Oracles and other Supernatural aids as the true God was said to dwell amidst the Cherubims The Egyptians as Ruffinus storieth entertained this superstitious perswasion amongst a multitude of others That if any man had laid violent hands on the Statue of Serapis the Heavens and the Earth would have been mixed together in a new Chaos Olympius the Sophist exhorteth the Gentiles still to adhere to the Religion of their Gods notwithstanding the Christians defaced their Statues And he gave them this as the reason of his counsel Because said he though the Images be corruptible things yet in them did dwell Virtues or Demons which from the ruins of their Statues took their flight to Heaven This Opinion Arnobius and Lactantius acknowledg to have been common among the Gentiles and we may still read it in the writings of the wiser shall I say
to the eluding of the force of such places that he believed an acknowledgment of Christ as Creator was in effect a confession of his Godhead This then being by Arius granted and by Socinus denied that Christ created the Natural World it is that single point in which Arius apart from Socinus is chargeable with Idolatry And certainly he is not accused upon slight and idle suspicion if the charge be drawn up against him either from Scripture or Reason In the Scripture God himself doth prove himself to the World to be the true one God by his making of all things In what other sense will any man whose prejudice does not bend him a contrary way interpret the following places Who hath measured out the waters in the hollow of his hand and meted out the Heavens with a span and comprehended the dust of the Earth in a measure and weighed the Mountains in scales and the Hills in a ballance Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counseller hath taught Him Thus saith the God the Lord he that created the Heavens and stretched them out He that spread forth the Earth and that which cometh out of it He that giveth breath unto the people upon it and spirit to them that walk therein I am the Lord that is my name and my Glory I will not give to another Thus saith the Lord that created thee O Jacob and formed thee O Israel Fear not Before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me The Lord is the true God he is the living God and an everlasting King or the King of Eternity Thus shall ye say unto them the Nations The gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens He hath made the Earth by his Power he hath established the World by his Wisdom and hath stretched out the Heavens by his Discretion Thus speaketh the Scripture In the next place let it be considered whether Reason can dissent from it What notion will Reason give us of the true God if it supposeth such wisdom and power in a creature as can make the World For does not Reason thence collect her Idea of God conceiving of him as of the mighty and wise framer of the Universe thus the very Americans themselves I mean the Peruvians did call their supreme God by the name of Pachaia Chacic which signifies as they tell us the Creator of Heaven and Earth In this then Arius is particularly to be condemned in that he supposeth the Creator a Creature and yet professeth to worship him under the notion of the Maker of all things It is true that Arius gave not to Christ the very same honour he did to the Father And his Disciples in their Doxologies were wont in cunning manner to give Glory to the Father by the Son And such a Form Eusebius himself used and we find it at the end of one of his Books against Sabellius Glory be to the one unbegotten God by the one only begotten God the Son of God in one holy Spirit both now and always and through all Ages of Ages Amen Neither do the Arians give any glory to Christ but that which they pretend to think enjoined by God the Father But if Christ had been a Creature the Creator would not by any stamp of his Authority have raised him to the value of a natural God and such a God they honour whatsoever the terms be with which they darken their sense for he is honoured by them as Creator and Governour and dispenser of Grace PART 3. Of the Idolatry of the Socinians THe point in which Socinus offendeth by himself is the Worship he giveth Christ whilst he maketh him but a man and such a man as is but a machine of animated and thinking Matter for though he declineth not the word soul or spirit I cannot find at the bottom of his Hypothesis any distinct substance of a Soul in Christ. If that Principle had been believed by him why doth he suppose the Lord Jesus bereaved of all Perception as long as his Body remained lifeless in the Grave Why do his Followers maintain that the dead do no otherwise live to God than as there is in him a firm purpose of their Resurrection for so the Vindicator of the Confession of the Churches of Poland written by Shlichtingius is pleased to discourse We believe said he not only that the Soul of Christ supervived his Body but also that the Souls of other men do the like But if Cichovius thinketh that the dead do otherwise live to God than as it is always in the hand and power of God to raise them up and restore them to life let him go and confute Christ where he saith I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob God is not the God of the dead but of the living Now Reason the great Diana of Socinus though he often took a cloud of fancy for his Goddess can't but judg it a disparagement to the Idea of a God to suppose such Divinity as can govern the World and hear and act in all places at once as Christ is by Socinus confessed to do in a portion of living Matter not six-foot square reserved in the Heavens and perceiving by the help of motion on its organs Arius advanced the Idea of Divinity to a much higher and more becoming pitch for he overcome with the plain evidence of Scripture maintained the Praeexistence of the Logos and supposed him to be a distinct substance from Matter And he might consequently affirm with consistence to his Principles that Christ could know without the mere help of motion and be spread in his substance to an amplitude equal with that of the Material World For the Material World is but a Creature one Body of many Creatures and it implieth no contradiction to say of God that he can make one Creature as big as the collection of all the rest But notwithstanding such amplitude there would still be wanting infinite Wisdom For in the Idea of God we have no other notion of it than as of such a Wisdom as sufficeth to frame the World and to govern it after it hath been framed Now this latter Point is that in which both Arius and Socinus are together condemned whilst both worship Christ as one who under God disposeth and governeth all things It is true that he is such but such he had not been if he had not been consubstantial with the Father In that sense he is the Father's Wisdom and whilst Arius and Socinus adore him as Gods Wisdom yet not as God they ascribe to the Creature the Attribute by which the Creator is known For the Scriptures they in opposition to all other gods do as well ascribe the Government as the Creation of the World to that one God of Israel Hear them speaking in this matter with so
For Images they venerate for so the Council of Trent loves to speak rather than to say adore or worship with the second Synod of Nice those of Christ the true God and of such as they esteem real Saints in Heaven and not the Statues of the Sun or of Universal Nature or of the Soul of the World or intentionally those of Devils or damned spirits In the Worship of Angels Saints Images they forbear Sacrifice as proper to God Whereas the Heathen did not appropriate it to Him for some of them offer'd only their Minds to the Supreme Deity and their Beasts to inferior gods And the greater number offer'd Victims and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Prayers used in sacrificing both to God and Daemons Yet it must be confessed that thus far the Church of Rome hath gone towards Sacrifice to Saints It hath appointed Masses which it esteemeth proper Sacrifices or Offerings of the Body of Christ to the Father in honour of her Saints Insomuch that such Masses bear the names of their Hero's and nothing is said more commonly than the Mass of St. Anthony the Mass of this or the other Saint But in this case the Council of Trent hath given caution and would not have it believ'd that the Sacrifice is offered to the Saint but to God only Now that which I have hitherto shewed is the fair side of the Church of Rome in reference to the Idolatry with which she is charged Neither hath my Pen dawbed in the representation it hath done her but justice But there is besides this already exposed to view a cloudy side of that Church which calleth her self the Pillar of Christian Truth This that we may the better discern let us first view it in the Council of Trent or in any later Popish Synods and then in its own subsequent Acts and see how far first in the point of Invocation of Saints and next of Images it doth directly or by plain consequence and not meerly by accidental abuse usurp any honour which belongeth to God PART 3. Of the Idolatry charged on the Papists in their Worship of Saints FIrst touching the Invocation of Saints the Council of Trent determineth that the spirits of holy men reigning with Christ are to be venerated and invoked And that they offer Prayers to God for us Also that it is good and lawful to pray to them and to flie to their Prayers their help and aid through Christ the only Saviour and Redeemer of men In pursuance of this Decree the Church of Rome hath continued her practice of worshipping Saints according to certain Forms of words prescribed in such Books as her Breviary and Missal which the Popes by virtue of another Decree of the same Council have revised and for common use established Now the forms and signs of Worship used in that Church are of such a nature that they seem at first view at least to give to the Saints if not that honour which is incommunicable yet that which God though he might have given it hath reserved to himself It may suffice to illustrate this matter if I select some Forms used in the Officium Parvum of the holy Virgin which maketh a part of the Romish Breviary set out in pursuance of the Decree of Trent by Pius the fifth In that Office the Virgin is worshipped in these Forms Establish us in peace Unloose the bonds of the guilty Bring forth light to the blind Drive away our evils Make us absolved of our faults meek and chaste Vouchsafe us a spotless life Thou art most worthy of all praise Let all who commemorate thee have experience of thy assistance Vouchsafe that I may praise thee O Sacred Virgin give me power against thy Enemies Let the Virgin Mary bless us and our pious off-spring Mary Mother of Grace Mother of Mercy do thou defend us from the Enemy and receive us at the hour of death We also find in that little Office this Exhortation ascribed to Bernard Let us embrace my Brethren the footsteps of Mary and let us cast our selves at her blessed feet with most devout supplication Let us hold her and not let her go till she bless us for she is able These Forms are agreeable to many others in the former part of the Roman Breviary out of which I will transcribe only the following Suffrages Holy Mary succour the miserable help the weak-hearted refresh the weeping pray for the people mediate for the Clergy intercede for devout women Let all who celebrate thy Commemoration feel Thy Aid Hail O Queen Thou Mother of mercy life sweetness and our Hope we salute thee To thee we the banished children of Eve do make our supplication To thee we sigh mourning and weeping in this valley of tears Go to therefore our Advocatress turn towards us those thy merciful eyes and shew us after this our banishment Jesus the blessed fruit of thy womb O mild O pious O sweet Virgin Mary Many of these Suffrages taken in their plain and common meaning do manifestly intrench upon the Prerogative of God And of this kind also are those Romish Prayers which are mentioned by Mr. Thorndike in the last part of his Epilogue in which he treateth of the Laws of the Church The third sort said he of the Prayers of Romanists unto Saints is when they desire immediately of them the same blessings spiritual and temporal which all Christians desire of God There is as he proceeds a Psalter to be seen with the name of God or rather Lord changed every-where into the name of Virgin There is a Book of Devotion in French with this Title Moyen de bien Servir prier adorer la Vierge Marie The way well to serve pray to and adore the blessed Virgin The Prayers of this third sort taking them at the foot of the Letter and valuing the intent of those that use them by nothing but the words of them are meer Idolatries As desiring of the creature that which God only gives which is the worship of the creature for the Creator God blessed for evermore And were we bound to make the Acts of them that teach these Prayers the Acts of the Church because it tolerates them and maintains them in it instead of casting them out it would be hard to free that Church from Idolatry which whoso admitteth can by no means grant it to be a Church The Letter then of Romish Forms being very scandalous those who justifie the use of them must shew some other words wherein the Romish Church hath so explained her self to the World that men may plainly know she never intended them in their common and native acception but in a sense agreeable to the tenure of Scripture and of such a sense Mr. Thorndike in the place before cited hath judged them capable If such an Interpretation be by her promulgated to the World the force of
all their distress O blessed Virgin Vers. In all our Tribulations and Anguishes Resp. The blessed Virgin-Mother succour us Where we have a Miserere not an Ora. Sometimes indeed the Romanists call the very prayer of the Virgin a protection as in this form We beseech thee O Lord that the glorious Intercession of the ever-blessed and glorious Virgin Mary may protect us and bring us to everlasting life But it is certain that they generally mean some further assistance than that of fupplication when they call for it for they are taught that the Saints are endued with such a power Hence John Heigham in his Popish Manual hath this Advertisement as preparatory to Confession Commend thy self unto Almighty God to his blessed Mother and to thy good Angel praying that thou maist no way be seduced or deceived by the fraud of the Devil Also to St. Mary Magdalene and to St. Barbara who as it is written have obtained most effectual grace and favour of God to assist in confession all such as pray unto them for their help and assistance If we proceed to other Councils later than that of the Council of Trent inquiring in them for interpretations of Romish Offices they are not in pretence any more than Provincial or National Synods not general Councils Wherefore the Interpretations of such Synods if any be found in them are not sufficient for the enlightning and manifesting the sense of the whole Church But so far as my observation in the perusal of them may be of validity I avouch that there is not in them such an interpretation as referreth the sense of the abovesaid Forms meerly to a praying to the Saints to pray for us In many of them the Doctrine of Trent in this Article is owned and reinforced but not that I know of further explained That which I find most opposite to the thing in hand amidst so vast an heap of Decrees is a certain place in the Synod of Cambray a Synod held somewhat more than an hundred years ago under Maximilian a Bergis Archbishop and Duke of Cambray The place which I mean is in the third Chapter under the Title de sanctis and thus it runs Let the Prayers of the Faithful follow the analogy and proportion of Faith Wherefore let the less learned Populace be admonished that when they visit the Memorials of the Saints and implore their aid and according to Christian custom repeat the Lords-prayer that they understand that they direct them not to the Saints but unto God the Saints being joined with them as Comprecators This sounds somewhat like a Plea from the Roman Church-men to the Populace of Cambray if care be taken that they be instructed according to that Decree of their Synod But that being a Decree enacted in a corner of the world and in a private Synod it cannot suffice in all those places where the Roman Offices are enjoined and where the use of them is continual Further two things are here to be observed in reference to this Decree First That the Invocation of Saints as Patrons contradicteth not the analogy of the Roman-Faith Secondly That the bringing of the Forms of Invocation to the Analogy of Faith in this Decree does not so much respect the Prayers in the Missal and Breviarie as the Lords-prayer repeated more privately in the Litanies of the Saints Proceed we next to the Roman Decretals In the new Decretals which make the seventh Book in the body of their Canon-law I can find nothing after the Creed of Trent urged upon all their Ecclesiasticks in the Bull of Pius the fourth besides the pressing of the same Form or Oath anew by Pius the fifth upon the Doctors and Professors of all Faculties For the Catechism of Trent I meet indeed with such an Interpretation of the forementioned Offices as soundeth to them that do not well attend as if all were meant of requesting the Prayers of Saints on our behalf The place of that Catechism is this which I am going to mention We do not after the same manner pray to God and to the Saints For we pray to God that he would give good things and deliver us from evil but we beg of the Saints because they are gracious with God that they would take us into their Patronage and procure of God the things we need Hence we use two different Forms for we say properly to God Have mercy on us Hear us to a Saint Pray for us though upon another account we may pray to the Saints themselves to have mercy on us for they are very merciful On this place it may not be amiss if I bestow these Animadversions First When it is said that Roman-Catholicks pray not to the Saints for the bestowing of good or the averting or removing of evil this is meant of absolute Prayer to use the terms of Cardinal Perron by which we address our selves to the first Cause who is God not of Relative supplication by which they call on the Saints as subordinate conveyers of good and averters of evil So in the Hymn Ave Mari's stella the Virgin is desired to give light to the blind and to drive away our evils Secondly When Papists desire the Saints to pray for them because they are gracious with God they mean not this only of their desire that the Saints would use their interest as Saints in their present case for the procuring of Gods immediate help but they also intreat them either to procure of God commission to be their Patrons or to continue his Grace to them in executing the commission formerly given them This I suppose is meant in those Collects where they desire God to protect his people who trust in the Patronage of Peter and Paul and other Apostles And this Horstius means in this form of Prayer to the Virgin I beseech thee by that mighty favour granted thee by Christ that thou wilt obtain for me more grace to please God Thirdly Though in the Litany where the Trinity is invoked with the form of Have mercy the Saints are called on with that of Pray for us for the same form so nigh would have sounded ill as if the Saints were equal with God yet when the Saints are addressed to in distinct Collects or Hymns the form is Help us as well as Pray for us Thus in the Hymn Alma Redemptoris Mater They a pray to the Virgin in the form of Peccatorum miserere Fourthly Here is own'd a request both for Patronage and Prayer And further in that Catechism b the Saints are called Mediators and Patrons and there is mention c of their Aids and their Worship is confounded with that of Angels under the name of Angelical Spirits And of them it is there affirmed that God hath appointed them to be his Ministers that he useth their Ministration in the Government both of his Church and of other things and that by their help
ground This opinion and practice had been the more tolerable if they had restrained it unto Angels of whose presence knowledg ministration the Scripture hath spoken but they extend it to Saints and for the holy Virgin their devotion is greater towards her than towards the highest Angel she being called the Queen of those Heavenly Powers The Authoress of the Spiritual Institutions prays not only to the Angels to the Angel-Guardian of her Person and to the Angel-Guardian of her Religion that is of her Order but likewise to St. Bernardine St. Placidus and other Saints as to her selected Patrons And Horstius a man of rank devotion towards Spirits and often to be remembred by me treateth first of the Worship of Saints and of them as Patrons and then of the Worship of Angels and Angel-Guardians Concerning Angels he sheweth that holy men such as he so esteemeth did both pray to their guardian-Guardian-spirit and to such Angels as were Presidents of Kingdoms Provinces Cities Towns with solioitous zeal and he nameth St. Xavier St. Aloysius and St. Francis and calleth to mind the singular devotion of the last towards St. Michael the Archangel Then for the Saints he celebrates them as such Who being formerly servants and stewards are now set over all the Goods of their Lord in the land of the living He saith that it belongeth to their praise and glory that their Aid be invoked and that they protect us in necessity And he teacheth his Reader thus to worship the Virgin Holy Mary Mother of God and Virgin I though unworthy to serve thee yet trusting in the clemency of thy Motherly heart chuse thee this day before my Guardian-Angel and the whole Court of Heaven for my Mother and peculiar Lady Patroness and Advocatrix And I firmly resolve henceforth to serve thee and thy Son with fidelity and perpetually to adhere to you I beseech thee by that love by which thy Son when he was giving up the Ghost upon the Cross commended himself to his Father and thee to his true Disciple and him again to thee to take me into thy care and protection and be thou with me in all the straits and dangers of my whole life but especially help me in the hour of my death Amen I have said that it is more tolerable to pray thus to Angels than it is to Saints but I can find little ground in Reason or Scripture thus to worship the Angels themselves Reason teacheth that God who made the World is the Governour of it The Scripture teacheth that there are distinct Orders of Angels but it disalloweth of such Lieutenancy under God as men have ascribed to them It mentioneth Thrones and Powers and Dominions and Principalities yet rather in allusion to the Gnosticks as was above conjectured than by way of assertion of such Orders Those Hereticks Irenaeus provoketh to tell what is the nature of Invisible Beings what is the number and order of Angels what are the Mysteries of Thrones and the diversities of Dominions Principalities Powers Virtues and he assureth us they were at a loss So ignorant was the Christian World in his time of the Nine Orders of the feigned Dionysius the Areopagite That there are distinct Orders of Spirits that there are Angels and Archangels I firmly believe But it does not thence follow that the Government of the World is shared amongst them though they have a Ministerial part in the affairs of it Archangels seem no other than the seven Spirits typified by the seven Lamps in the Temple Their Office was as elect and eminent Spirits to minister before the Throne of God and on solemn occasions to be sent in Embassie to the World Such a one was Gabriel who stood in the Presence of God and was sent to the Blessed Virgin Nothing of this inferreth their distinct Provinces committed to them but it sheweth only the dignity of their station and their occasional Ministry Neither doth it follow from the seven Angels mentioned as Presidents of the seven Churches of Asia that they as some have taught were under the Charge and Patronage of seven Spirits For St. John is required to write to these Angels and to reprove their faults as the abatement of Love in the Angel of Ephesus and his Church And he makes distinct mention of the seven Spirits and the seven Stars which latter he had shewed to be the Angels of those Churches and who were therefore no other than the Bishops of them called by a name which is given the High Priest in the Prophet Malachy and by the Jews in Diodorus Christian Religion owneth but one proper Substitute under God one Paraclete or Patron for so that title signifies one proper Mediator the glorified Jesus the Spirits under him are but Angels or Messengers though sent abroad on different Embassies Wherefore I know not how to approve of the expression of a late very grave and learned Author who speaketh of the Invisible Regiment of the World by the subordinate Government of good and evil Angels It is true that the good are a Community and so in some sort are the bad but their divers Orders concern their own society most and they are not to be construed as the Orders and Powers in the frame of Gods Government of the whole World It is also to be confessed that Elisha's servant to reflect a little on his instance saw fiery Chariots and Horsmen in the Mount and that this was a representation of Gods Angels in the scene of a Camp But no other Argument ought to be fetched thence besides that which concludeth that there is a greater power in God and his Coelestial Ministers than in the Armies of the World He that will torture this Vision and make it confess commission-Officers amongst them ought also to make them ride on Horses and Chariots For evil Angels their dominion is oftner mentioned than that of the good But certainly though they are called in Scripture Principalities and Powers no man that carefully attendeth to his words will call them also subordinate Governours of the World For they are professed Rebels against God who doth not own or treat them as his subjects but he being provoked by the perverseness of wicked men permitteth those rebellious Daemons to exercise great power amongst the children of disobedience who are in indirect Covenant with them It is worse still to say that God ruleth the World by Saints than to affirm so much of him in reference to his holy Angels yet this the Romanists openly maintain and some also who have not only disputed but even raved against the Church of Rome For so it is said by Thomas Goodwin in his Sermon of the fifth Monarchy That the Saints on earth have by their Prayers an influence in the managing the affairs of the World and into the accomplishment of all the great things that Christ doth for his Church That
fled to the Churches of St. Paul and St. Peter And he did it saith Grotius by a Providence like to that by which they were saved in Jerusalem who had kept the Law which was signified by the Letter Thau that is Thorah the Law written on their foreheads as is said in Ezekiel They went out of Babylon or Rome to the holy places which stood without the City and there remained in undisturbed peace more by Gods protection than the Gothick Clemency though by the Edict of Alarick such Churches were made the Sanctuaries of Christians This Instance no doubt heightned the veneration of many towards the Martyrs though God wrought such things not as testimonies of the power of the Martyrs but as supports to the Christian Religion And this being an Instance in the Gothick story it reminds me of The second occasion of the worship of Spirits as Rulers of the World in certain Precincts especially in this Western Church to wit the Invasion of the Northern Nations who sought their preferment by quitting their own Country In Rome it self a great number of the Senators worshipped Idols in the very reign of Theodosius the Great And many worshippers of false gods upon the Sack of Rome by the Goths under Alaricus did saith St. Austin in the Argument of his Book of the City of God charge the calamity on the Christian Religion and blaspheme the true God with bitterer words than it was their custome to use And this as he declareth stirred up his zeal and moved him for the stopping of their ungodly mouths and refuting their Errors to write that Book For the Goths themselves the general body of them was barbarously Idolatrous though some of that people had received betimes the Christian Faith for Theophilus a Gothick Bishop was at the Council of Nice and the Vandals were wholly Pagans Neither were there under Heaven a people more zealously devoted to Daemons than the Scythians Getes or Goths Of the Thracian Getes Pausanias saith in his Baeoticks that they were a more acute Nation than the Macedonians and by no means so negligent in the worship of their gods Schedius in his Dissertations concerning the German-gods hath remembred very many Gothick Deities and there is a Learned man of our own Nation who tells us that he hath not numbred the half of them Of Herald the first King of Norway it is reported by Crantzius that he offered two of his own Sons unto his Daemons for the obtaining at Sea such a Tempest as might disperse that Armado of Herald the sixth King of Denmark which was prepared against him and that he obtained that for which he had bidden so dear and bloody a rate After the further Conversion of those Northern people none more corrupted their worship than they with the observance of Tutelar Saints In the Chronicle of Swedeland the inferior Deities of that place exceed the number of the Villages and I need no further instance than that which I find in Felix Faber a Monk of Ulma A Town saith he night to Ulma is Seflingen in which is the Blessed Virgin presiding in the Garden of Virgins and keeping on the West the Walls of that City On the South is situate the Village of Wiblingen in which St. Martin armed both with the Temporal and Spiritual Militia is the Patron of the Church and the Guardian of the Ulmenses Nigh also is Schuvekhofen an ancient Town where at this day standeth a Church in which S. John the Evangelist watcheth over Ulma On the East is the Village Pful where standeth the Mausoleum of the Blessed Virgin in the publick street There she demonstrates by certain Miracles that she dwells in that place Thence she looks upon Ulma with the eyes of mercy and defends it In that Village S. Udalricus is Patron of the Church an excellent Guardian of the Citizens who implore his Aid On the North on the Royal Mountain of Elchingen is placed a lofty Throne of the Blessed Virgin to the terror of all that have evil will at Ulma He further mentions St. George St. Leonard all Saints with the Virgin in the midst of them St. James and St. Michael as Patrons and defendants of that place And for St. Michael he is placed on a Mountain on the West-side as a Watchman looking over the whole City and in Armour as the Protector of it Now the Northern Barbarians being so inclined to the worship of Tutelar Daemons it is no wonder if many Christian Romans to mollifie their savageness and to induce them to Christianity so far complied as to offer them Tutelar Saints and holy Angels instead of their evil Guardian Spirits This I suppose they did because I find the Concurrence of their Invasion and stay in Italy and of the rise and growth of Daemon-worship there both happening in the fourth and fifth Centuries And it may not be unworthy the Observation of the Reader that in the fifth Century St. Michael the Archangel a most eminent Patron as we just now heard from Felix Faber among the Northern Christians was first Commemorated in the Western Church by a solemn Feast I would here further note that Woden not the Mercury but the Mars of the Northern Idolaters was in highest esteem among them That Michael answereth to him being as the Roman Litanies stile him the Prince of the Heavenly Host That this Feast of St. Michael was then instituted when Peace was desired betwixt Odoacer King of the Heruli who came first from Scandanivia and were called afterwards Lombards and Theodorick the first King of the Goths in Italy Having thus aimed at the resolution of the fiast Inquiry the occasion of Daemon-worship in the Church I proceed to shew in the second place That this worship derogateth from the Honour of God as Governour of the World by his immediate self though also by a Substitute for he is likewise the same Essential God It is both by the Romanists and the Reformed acknowledged that God is the Governour of the World That in him we live and move and have our being That he giveth us life and breath and all things That to him all glory is to be referred Neither hath he anywhere declared that he hath divided the Regiment of the World into several Lieutenancies of Angels or Saints He hath no-where shewed us that he hath given to this Angel and that Saint not to a Saint especially a Commission to rule in such a Precinct or a Patent to practice as a Supernatural Physician in such a City or Town or any-where in the cure of such a disease or Orders to assist at this Mass and that Confession If therefore such effects of Protection Health and assistance follow and are believed to comefrom this or the other Saint though as subordinate to God the supreme Governour and infinite Physician yet a degree of Trust is put in them as Plenipotentiaries or Substitutes of the King of the
was invok'd And he accordingly taketh notice of the Praises of Heart and Voice which every preserved Citizen did offer to that Goddess In his eleventh chapter he telleth how a man possessed with the Devil was by this Tutelar Deity as he there calls her delivered from so wicked and dangerous an Inhabitant And after having told his story he falleth to his Prayers in this manner O powerful O merciful Goddess defend us also from this subtil Serpent And thou who didst once bruise his head in thy Conception assist us so effectually that his tail may neither scourge us nor throw us on the ground Then after having ended his Legend consisting of divers Miracles wrought at her shrine he falls again to his Prayers in his thirty-sixth or last Chapter and this is the form of his Address O Goddess thou art the Queen of Heaven of the Sea of the Earth above whom there is nothing but God Thou Moon next to him the Sun whom I implore and invocate Protect and take care of us both in publick and private Thou hast seen us these forty years tossed in a publick storm O Mary calm this tumultuous Sea He concludeth with a Poetical Consecration of a silver-Pen to her who had as he believ'd been the author and finisher of his studies Now then such kind of Worshippers do in part revive one degree of the Idolatry of the Gentiles who divided Places Persons Things Actions subject to the Supreme God amongst Sempiternal or Canoniz'd Spirits The chief Architect of the Egyptian Pharos put upon his Workmanship this Inscription Sostratus of Gnidos the Son of Dexiphanes to the Gods Protectors for the safeguard of Sailers What now is the difference betwixt this Inscription and one made by a Papist in honour of S. Nicholas upon the little Church nigh the Wurbel in the Danube None sure unless it be this that the first is in veneration of a Christian Saint the other of good Genii For we are told by those whose credit is as unquestionable as their Learning and who have been upon the place that the Church is dedicated to S. Nicholas That he is the supposed Patron of that dangerous Whirlpool in that River that he is believ'd to take peculiar care of such as pass that way and that a little Boat comes to you as soon as you are out of danger and receives what acknowledgment you please or what perhaps you may have promised to give when you were in some fear It may be God alone calmeth those waves at least without a Saint and S. Nicholas receiveth much of the acknowledgment the whole possibly from the common men of the Vessel whom danger teacheth to pray whilst superstitious ignorance misleadeth them from praying aright Martinus de Roa though a learned Jesuit and a Spaniard does openly declare the nature of this Romish practice he does not seek to give a false colour to it but he shews it as a Practice which plainly agreeâ—…th with the worship of the Gentiles He speaketh out saying that it is a Rite amongst them to call upon the tutelar Deity of the Nation as upon St. James in Spain at the beginning of their Battels And this custom he parrallels with that of the Macedonians in Justin who in their battels called sometimes upon Alexander and sometimes upon Philip as upon Gods invoking their aid for the success of their Armes And then he subjoyneth the practice of the Germans who as Tacitus reporteth joyned not in fight with their enemies 'till they had solemnly prayed to Hercules This kind of worship the Pope continueth to encourage by setting up new Saints as Tutelar Spirits in his Canonizations of them Thus for inscance sake Pope Clement the Tenth confirmed the decree of Pope Clement the ninth in which St. Rosa is created Patroness of the City Lima the chief Town and the Archiepiscopal seat in Peru and principal Protectress of the same Kingdom of Peru and of all the Provinces and Kingdoms of the Terra firma of all the Peruvian America and of the Philippine Islands And this it seems was done to this end that an addition might be made to the veneration of that Saint and that through her intercession the People of those parts might the more strongly hope for Patronage or Protection So S. Thomas de Villanova is canonized by Alexander the seventh who whilst he registreth him in the Calendar of his gods useth this Exhortation Wherefore let us go with boldness to the throne of the Divine mercy praying with heart and voice that S. Thomas may preside over Christian people by his Merit and Example that he may assist them with his Prayers and Patronage and that in the time of wrath he may become their Reconciliation Such Deities the Papacy setteth up and nothing is more common than for the people of that Church to fall down and worship them in that quality Neither can Travellers shun such Statues and Inscriptions as give them advertisement of this worship of Tutelar Saints Such an Inscription is that at Brussels betwixt the Quire and the Sacristy of the Cathedral The Monument is dedicated by Maximilian Duke of Bavaria and Archbishop and Elector of Colen to the immaculate Virgin and to S. Lambert as to the Tutelar Deities of that Church and Countrey S. Michael also is the special Protector of that City and upon the top of its Townhouse stands his Statue in brass Who can go into Lentini and not have notice of the three French Brethren and Martyrs Alsio Philadelfo and Cirino venerated there as its Patrons and Guardians Who travelleth to Utopolis or S. Veit and seeth not the four Chappels on the four Hills of S. Veit S. Ulrick S. Laurence S. Helena or heareth not of St. Veit or St. Faith as of one that cureth the Dancing-sickness known by the name of Chorea sancti viti Who entreth Paris and heareth not St. Geneviefve celebrated as the Protectress of it And is not she called the Guardian of France and the North-star of her Imperial City Who understandeth the ancient estate of England and is ignorant of the Veneration which it hath had for its presumed Patron St. George So great it was that when certain Holy-days were abrogated in the Reign of Henry the Eighth the Feast of St. George was excepted as well as those of the Apostles and our Lady Who crosseth the Ocean and visiteth the Mexican America and observeth not that St. Joseph is made the Patron of new Spain The Synod of Mexico confirmed at Rome hath declared him to be such and given particular order for the celebration of his Holy-day I am not able to recount to how many places persons and things the Protection of the holy Virgin is said to extend The fancy of the eloquent Jesuit Rapine hath made her to preside over Clouds and Tempests over Tillage and Pasturage over Flocks and Herds To
Virgin asserted and also a proof of the Imposture of such Appearances from the Story it self which representeth not a blessed Saint ascribing all Glory to the great God but a vain perfon delighted with the unjust flatteries of her self This then is the way in which I conceive the Church of Rome giveth away a degree of the Honour of God the Father to wit by her disposal of the Government of the World though in subordination to his Supremacy unto Angels and Saints without any sufficient declaration from him that he hath been willing so to prefer them and by her worshipping of them in that quality which her own imagination hath enstated them in I am next to consider how the Church of Rome doth by such estimation and worship entrench on the Divine Honour with respect to Christ as Mediator God hath not owned any Substitute besides his Son who hath all power given to him being as God-man most capable of it And though the Church of Rome doth acknowledg Christ to be the Author of Salvation and the Supreme Patron and Mediator yet still it doth entrench upon his Honour in its worship of Saints three several ways First More particularly in that Worship which is given to the Virgin In the second place More generally in the worship given to so many Saints and Angels Thirdly In the frequency of the worship given both to the Virgin and to the other Heavenly spirits First The Honour of Christ is particularly abated in the customary worship of the blessed Virgin Abated I say not quite removed For the Prayers to her are still per Dominum through Christ her Son though it seemeth sometimes to be intimated as in the Monstra Te esse Matrem Shew thy Mother-hood in the Hymn Ave Maris stella that she can command his Answers And when God is invoked by her Merits her Merits are supposed to be derived from his But an abatement there is of Christs Honour by that supereminent Advancement which is given to her by the practice of that Church without any declaration contrary to it For that Church doth set her as Solomon did his Mother in the Throne with himself though on that hand which signifies that he is still the Supreme Now it is manifest that Honour is diminished both where it is equally shared and where a second keepeth not distance but doth obtain a point next to the first For from degrees of Power and Distance arise degrees of Honour and a Prince that sitteth alone in the Chair of State is thereby in possession of higher Honour than he who hath a Second sitting next him though on the less honourable hand And accordingly it was esteemed a defect in Policy both through the occasion given by it of being supplanted and through the diminution it made of Supreme Honour of which each degree is a degree of Power when any Princes in the Roman Empire such as AElius Adrianus and Antoninus the Philosopher admitted Seconds to sit with them in the Throne of Government though themselves reserved still the first Place and remained as it were the Heads of the Empire Now it is the practice of the Church of Rome to celebrate the Virgin as a kind of Co-Ruler with her Son to salute her as we heard but now from the Office of her Seven Allegresses as a Queen on the right hand of Christ in his Throne The Scripture hath in it this Prophecy of the Messiah There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jess and a branch or flower shall grow or rise out of his roots Hierom Xaverius hath wrested this place even from the sense of the Vulgar Translation and he thus readeth it in his Persic Gofpel A true branch shall rise out of the root of Jesse and out of that branch a flower shall be born Misapplying the first to the Virgin and the second to Christ whilst both are spoken of him To this misinterpretation he might be led by the Hymn in the Breviary which saluteth her by the Title of the Holy Root And it is evident by the Psalter of Bonaventure which is known to turn Lord into Lady throughout the Psalms not omitting to Travest that place of The Lord said unto my Lord into Our Lady said unto my Lord Sit thou on my right hand and by Salazar who in his Commentary on the Proverbs interpreteth Wisdom of the Virgin that the Marians would scrue up the sense of the Old Testament into the assertion of a kind of coequality of the Virgin with Christ. Hence Baronius himself calleth her the Ark in one place and in another the Tabernacle The things relating to Christ under the New Testament are equally perverted by this inordinate devotion to that Virgin who cannot give those a welcome reception who with such affront to her Son make their Court to her As the Scripture mentioneth the Nativity of Christ celebrated by a Quire of Angels so doth the Roman Church observe the Nativity of the Virgin from a story of melody heard from Heaven by a devout man in a Desart on her birth-day Hierom Xaverius hath set down this Story for Gospel among the Indians and Innocent the fourth upon that report caus'd the dav to be Sacred As Christs triumphant Ascension is spoken of in the Scripture and observed in our Church so in the Legends of Rome there is frequent mention of her Assumption and it is in that Church celebrated with pomp Before that Office she is pictur'd in the Missal lately Printed at Paris ascending with a glory about her head in equal shew of triumph with Christ. As Christ is said in the Te Deum to have opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers so is the Virgin called by them the Gate and the Hall-gate of Heaven As he is called Gods beloved Son so is she called Gods beloved Daughter As Christ is said to be exalted above all things in Heaven and Earth so is the Virgin called the Queen of Heaven and sometimes the Queen of the Heavens in reference to the Angels and sometimes the Queen of Heaven and Earth Nay the Jesuit Rapine hath enstated her in that Empire without any mention of the King her Son as above her As Christ is acknowledged by Christians to be the Head of the Church and the only Mediator and Advocate so the Virgin is stil'd in the Synod of Mexico the Universal Patroness and Advocatress As the day has been divided into several portions in which devout people have prayed to God and Christ so seven Canonical Hours have been appointed for the worship of the Virgin As God and Christ have the Sunday sacred to them so in the Roman Church the Virgin hath Saturday On that day therefore saith Augustine Wichmans more Requests of miserable mortals are sealed by her the Chancelaress of the greatest King in the Court of Heaven than on all the
Analogy I mean such Objects as bear some Metaphorical proportion to some excellencies of God though they be not the proper Images Statues or Pictures of them Such an Image was that of Jupiters remembred by Vignola in his Discourse of the five Orders in Building He mentioneth there a Capital in which were the Images of four Eagles instead of Stalks and instead of Fruits and Flowers four Jupiters faces with Thunderbolts under them A Representation this may be judged of the power piercing eye quick execution of will in their own Jove in the four Quarters of the World Such an Analogical Image of the true God do some Papists esteem the Statue or Picture of an aged man whose years and experience are apt to signifie the Eternity and Wisdom of God and that of a Dove to signifie his purity and simplicity in a manner suitable to our conception In both these Instances I think they are mistaken Daniel as shall be shewed in the last Chapter did not mean the Godhead or the Father by the Ancient of Days Neither ought his transient Vision which had something humane mixt with it be made a standing-pattern in Religion Such Visions being impressed on the fancy could not be there represented without some earthly Imagery which the enlightned reason of the Prophet could separate from the Diviner part which is the thing principally intended Now to bring the whole scene with its glory and its imperfection before the eyes of the people in Gods standing-standing-worship is to confound in their Imaginations things sacred and secular and to adulterate their Devotion Then for the Image of a Dove the Text in the Gospels proveth no more than that the Spirit imitated the gentle hovering of that Bird And the learned think it did so in the appearance of a bright cloud hovering with gentle motion over the waters and the Person of our Lord baptized in them It is plain by the words of St. Austine that he thought it Idolatrous to contemplate God in our mind according to the extent of those expressions which we use in speaking of him And the like certainly he judged of contemplating God according to Dreams and Visions which are partly humane and partly divine Thus then that great Light of Africa discourseth We believe that Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father Yet thence are we not to think that the Father is circumscribed with humane form so as to occur to our mind contemplating of him as one that has a right and a left hand or as one sitting with bended knees left we fall into that sacriledg for which the Apostle condemneth those who turned the glory of the Incorruptible God into the similitude of corruptible man Such a Statue is not without impiety erected to God in a Christian Temple much more in the heart where the Temple of God is truly situate if it be purged from earthly concupiscence and error St. Austin then as Spalatensis reflecteth on these words would have advised that the Visions of Daniel and other of that nature produced by Bellarmine should be contemplated with the mind and not be pictured especially in Churches that they should be resolved into their true signification and not impressed upon the brain lest through the Picture of an Old man or Dove the defects of Age wings and bill possess the imagination There is danger in using any Images of Animals as Statues or Pictures of God for they will be made not Images only of Analogy but of representation by the ignorant whilst shape and life are personally set forth But there is not so great danger in the Images of things without life especially if they be flat Pictures not Protuberant Statues nor Pictures which the Artist hath expressed with roundness The worse and the more flat the work is the less danger there is of its abuse Titian hath painted the Virgin and the Child Jesus so very roundly that as Sir Henry Wotton a very good judg both of the pictures and dispositions of men saith of it a man knows not whether to call it a piece of Sculpture of Picture In some kinds of Pictures if there be found analogy and that analogy be discreetly expressed as by the name Jehovah or according to the Jewish modesty Adonai incircled with clouds and rays of glorious Light I know no sin in the making of it or contemplating in it in a Metaphorical way some of the Perfections of the infinite God in such manner expressed A devout man would not put a Paper with such an impression to vile uses He would think it fitter for his Closet than for his Chamber of Grimaces though he would not think it the representation of God or give it Divine honour by inward estimation or outward signs By Images of memory I mean such Objects as contain in them no analogy to the Divine Perfections nor any pretended representation of them but yet are apt to put us in mind of God being erected as Pillars or Monuments in places where he has done some great and excellent work Such was the Pillar of Jacob and in the making of such there is no unlawfulness nor in exhibiting before them such signs of honour as are proper to be shewed before a monument of Divine Wisdom Power or Goodness unless in times and places where other such Statues are erected to false gods and the erection and honour of them is by common construction the mark of their Worshippers Such Images of memory are often exhibited by God himself Such was the pillar of Salt into which the body of Lots Wife was converted a pillar of Remembrance of Gods justice and of admonition to them who look back towards the pollutions which they have escaped Such was the adust earth which Solinus speaks of in those places where the inhabitants of Sodom were destroyed by Sulphureous flames from Heaven though it was no pillar yet was it a monument of Divine power and severity towards their unnatural lusts And he that carves engraves or paints these holy Histories may be an useful Artist By Images of Representation I mean Statues or Pictures made by art with intent to exhibit the likeness of the person The making and worshipping such Images of him God himself condemneth appealing to the world whether there be any thing in nature to which he can be resembled Such a Representation is undue though made according to the best pattern in the visible world and much more if it be made in viler and as the Heathen were wont to do in the Images of Priapus and Attis in immoral figures And the Worshipper who gives to it veneration as to an Image of God does highly dishonour him by changing his essential glory into such similitudes And it is not so ignominious for Caesar to be painted in the similitude of an Ass or of the worst Monster in the Sculptures of Licetus as for God to be represented in the pretended likeness of his Deity by
them who on earth can reveal to us whilst eye hath not seen it neither hath ear heard it But for the Images or Pictures of the Saints in their former estate on earth if they be made with discretion if they be the Representations of such whose Saintship no wise man calleth into question if they be designed as their honourable Memorials they who are wise to sobriety do make use of them and they are permitted in Geneva it self where remain in the Quire of the Church of St. Peter the Pictures of the twelve Prophets on one side and on the other those of the twelve Apostles all in wood also the Pictures of the Virgin and St. Peter in one of the Windows And we give to such Pictures that negative honour which they are worthy of We value them beyond any Images besides that of Christ we help our memories by them we forbear all signs of contempt towards them But worship them we do not so much as with external positive signs for if we uncover the head we do it not to them but at them to the honour of God who hath made them so great Instruments in the Christian Church and to the subordinate praise of the Saints themselves They who worship such Images do either worship them as the Statues of such invisible Powers as do under God govern the world or of holy Spirits who hear them in all places and pray to God particularly for them or who only pray for them in general or as so many Shechinahs of ruling or interceding Saints And First If they worship them as Representations of ruling Daemons they are Idolatrous For they thereby give away the honour of Gods reserved power to a Creature They honour as Clients the statue of a Saint whilst God is by right their Patron Secondly If they worship the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who pray for them and hear them in any place by the help of that God whose essence is every-where and who enabled the Prophet to know the actions of Gehazi when he was out of his sight they are still thereby in peril of Idolatry for if God does not enable them to hear and they pray with confidence in them as hearing they relye on a power in the Creature which God hath not communicated to it Thirdly If they honour the Images of Saints only as holy spirits who in general pray for them they are not to be thence condemned as Idolaters for should they so far debase their reason as to give to the Image the same honour which is due to the Saint they honour but a creature that is inferior with the honour of a creature superior to it who prayeth for them in the mass of mankind And if they bow to such an Image that external sign of worship can't reasonably be interpreted by the beholders as a sign of Divine honour because they bow to that which appears no other than the Image of a Saint and not a Crucifix or Image of Christ the eye sufficiently distinguishing these and therefore it hath no higher honour than the Prototype which is a Creature I except here such bowing and kneeling to the Image of a Saint as is in use in the Roman Church and is accompanied with a form of Prayer proper to be addressed to God and particularly that form which Christ hath taught us For though the Catechism of Trent requireth the Parish Priest to let the people understand that when any one pronounceth the Lords-Prayer to the Image of a Saint he should think only that he joineth his Prayers with those of that Saint to God for him Yet the people are not so apt to receive the instruction and to be free from mistake and this the Catechism it self supposeth whilst it speaketh of the need there is of the greatest caution in this matter need of it not only for the moment of the thing but for the easiness of erring in it Fourthly If they worship them as Shechinahs of ruling Daemons they honour that as the presence of a power which God is pleased every-where to exercise and which he hath not fixed in such Statues in order to any eminent operation Wherefore they give the honour of Gods Schechinah to that which is not such and their trust is in an Idol And here the practice of the Church of Rome is scandalous if its constitution be not There is a common perswasion among that people that Prayers are more effectually heard and that Miracles are sooner done before an Image than in the absence of it That one Image is a more excellent Shechinah than another that our Lady will perform things at Loretto which she will not do at Rome it self And they who desire blessing of St. Winifred think they soonest attain it at her well The Liber Festivalis as they called it in use here in England in the time of Henry the seventh aboundeth with stories of Divine power working in Images and amongst other tales it telleth of the power of the Image of St. Nicholas in keeping mens Goods in safety and how certain Thieves who were permitted for a time to steal a few Goods committed to its care were by St. Nicholas forced to speedy restitution We read in Krantzius that Count Gerhard Uncle to Waldemare of Sleswick went to battel against the Danes with the Image of the Virgin about his neck after the manner of Sylla the Dictator who used in such emergencies certain little statues of Apollo or Jove one of which after his escape in a very dangerous Fight he kissed saying O Jupiter I had almost fallen with you this day and you with me And the Books of the most learned Papists are full of Legends which by telling of the motion of the Images themselves in wonderful manner or of the miraculous events succeeding the Addresses made at them do incline the people to come thither with confidence as to the Shechinahs of God Curtius the Provincial of Belgium is one of these writers and I find this story in him There was a certain poor man who in extreme need beseeched our Saviour to preserve him from perishing by some small Alms. At this Prayer the Image or rather Christ in the Image bowed himself and gave to the beggar his right shoo as a help in his need Away went the man with this new prize but the neighbours hearing of it redeemed the shoo with the equal weight in gold But that shoo to this day could never be fitted again to the foot but is supported with a Chalice It seems this Crucifix was made of Cedar by Nicodemus himself but methinks with no good fancy the Artist having carved a Crown of Gold instead of one of Thorns upon the head of our holy Lord. Lipsius a man rather learned than wise telleth of the many drops of blood which distilled from a certain wooden Image of the Virgin at Halla And on this he looked as on a miracle
original Quaker but as of one who by believing that God is not distinct from the Saints and by worshipping that which he calls his Light or Christ within him rejecteth the Person of our Redeemer and committeth Idolatry with his own imagination must not they make a like judgment of such as Anna Trapnell who believed for a while that God dwelt essentially in his Saints must not they also judg of Lodowick Muggleton as of a mad-man or of an Impostor selling his Blessings at a very profitable rate or of an Idolater worshipping nothing for the one true God but a confined person of flesh and bones For he owneth no other Godhead than that which was conceived in the womb of the Virgin and circumscribed by it for a season and as he blasphemously continues to speak such as lost it self for a while both in honour and knowledg not knowing till he was glorified that himself was God the Father but that Elias was his God and his Father For that also is one of his Blasphemies That God not finding it safe to trust the Angels upon his descent from Heaven he committed his place to the safer trust of Moses and Elias A blasphemy worse if possible than that in Irenaeus of the extravagant Gnosticks who supposed the place of the Logos to have been on earth supplied by the Angel Gabriel But I forbear any further repetition of his abominable Fancies which will cause as great pain in the ears of pious Christians as the Justice of the Magistrates has lately done in his own I shut up this Chapter with the Prayer of that Learned French-man Isaac Casaubon Thou O Lord Jesu preserve this church of England and give a sound mind to those Nonconformists who deride the Rites and Ceremonies of it CHAP. XIV Of the means which God hath vouchsafed the World towards the cure of Idolatry and more particularly of his favour in exhibiting to that purpose the Shechinah of his Son PART 1. Of the Cure of Idolatry THE Notion of Idolatry being stated and also illustrated by the practice of it amongst Gentiles Jews Mahometans and Professors of Christianity I proceed to shew the means which God in pity of our weakness hath given us towards the Cure of this Evil. Against all manner of false Gods and ruling-Daemons he gave to all the world a Principle of Reason which teacheth that there is one Supreme Being absolute in Perfection and by consequence that he being every-where by Almighty Power Wisdom and Goodness is every-where to be adored and trusted in as the only God The same Principle of Reason teacheth them that God can neither be represented by an Image nor confined to it neither knoweth it much more of the inferiour Powers of the invisible World save that they are and consequently it hath no ground for addresses to them For the Jews they had an express command for the worship of one God without Image and many declarations of God as governing the world by his immediate Providence Also Christian Religion sheweth plainly that the gods of the Heathens were Doemons or evil spirits and that there is but one God and one Mediator to be by Christians adored It establisheth a Church or Corporation of Christians who agree in the worship of one God in Trinity In Baptism or the Sacrament of admittance into that Society it prescribeth a solemn Renuntiation of the Devil and his works of which a part were the Pomps or Processions in honour of Idols In the Sacrament which is a memorial of the Passion of Christ the Head and Founder of this Society it offereth to us the Cup of the Lord in opposition to the cup of Devils On the First-day of the Week set a-part for publick worship it maketh a Remembrance of the Creation of the world by the Son by whom the Father made all things and not by any Doemons as also of the Resurection of Christ from the dead by which he conquered the powers of darkness In the Form of Prayer which our Lord taught the Church it prayeth for deliverance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from that evil one from Satan the destroyer as Rabbi Judah was wont to petition and in the Doxology it ascribeth not with the Heathen world which then lay in maligno illo under the Power of the God of this world in general Idolatry the Kingdom Power and Glory to the Devil but to that one true God who was the Father of Jesus Christ. But upon most of these Subjects I have already inlarged It remaineth therefore that I speak of the means which God hath specially vouchsafed in the case of Images a Subject not commonly discoursed of and hinted only in the former Papers This Disquisition I will begin with the notion of the Invisibility of God proceeding thence to the condescension he vouchsafes towards the very eye and fancy of man in the Shechinah of his Son There is in the very Creation a great part of invisible matter and motion Many things besides God Almighty are not immediately subject to mans sense though his Reason can reach them after a Philosophical consideration of their palpable effects God indeed could have made that matter which is now invisible to have been seen by man in all the minute and curious Textures of it For what should hinder that omnipotence which formed the light and created the soul from framing the Fibers of the Nerves in such delicate manner in this life what possibly he may do in the coelestial body as to give to man a kind of natural Microscope But for his own Divine substance which hath neither limits nor parts nor Physical motion which is the division of Parts nor figure which is inconsistent with immensity nor colour which is an effect of figure and motion upon the brain it is certain that in this body we cannot see it and there is great reason to doubt whether we can do so in any other which though it be coelestial is still but body For this sight then we are not to hope unless we mean it of the fuller knowledg of Gods will and interpret the antecedent by the consequent in that place of Scripture which saith No man hath seen God at any time the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father he hath reveal'd him St. John in that place denieth expresly actual sight as also he doth again in his first Epistle Tertullian in his refutation of Praxeas discourseth of the invisibility of God and the visibility of the Son of God illustrating his sense by the appearance of the Sun which is not seen in its very body but by its rays And he further noteth of St. Paul that he had to this purpose denied both the actual and potential sight of God No man said that Apostle hath seen God nor can see him No man whilest alive can see God as he is as he dwells in Heaven the Palace and
at his feet as before a God This Jesus was the Ark of the new Covenant and of the Testimony of God the witness of God faithful and true as he is stiled in the Revelation of Saint John Jesus was in effect the whole house of Gods especial presence the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the name which Philo gives the Tabernacle or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or it may be if it were rightly printed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus calleth the Zodiack or the Sun moving in it the portable the walking Temple who like the rolling Sun which dispenseth his influence far and near went about doing good having no resting-place for his Head till he was fixed on Mount Sion above This is the Ark of God exalted first on the Cross and then to Heaven Whence God commandeth his blessing sending him by his Spirit and Gospel to bless and to turn all of us from our iniquity This Ark is the true Mercy-seat the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Propitiatory as he is called in the Epistle to the Romans and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. John calleth him that is the Propitiation for our sins St. Hierom Commenting on those words in the Version of Ezekiel in the 43d Chapter and 14th verse from the lesser settle to the greater settle and observing them to be rendred on this wise by the Seventy Interpreters From the lesser to the greater Propitiatory He applys the lesser Propitiatory to Christ in the form of a servant and the greater to Christ glorified in the Heavens Here is then both the Aaron and Aharon the true Ark and Priest of the most high God This Ark or rather this entire Temple of God like the Tabernacle in Shiloh seemed for a time forsaken possessed by the great Philistin for what is stronger than death and laid in the dust but God raised it up after three days in greater glory and so as that it is never to fall again This Ark was after a few days taken up into the true Sanctuary of God where it remaineth till the restitution of all things and whither our eyes and hearts are to direct themselves in all Religious worship From that Sanctuary he appear'd in a glorious light to his first Martyr St. Steven when well awake and whilst he directed his countenance towards Heaven whither his spirit was ready to take its way He being full of the Holy Ghost or divine energy looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God Thence also he appeared to Saul in a light so vehement that for a time it took away the use of his eyes Thence he sent the Holy Ghost at Pentecost become now as it were the Substitute and Shechinah of the Glorified Jesus This hovered as a glorious flame over the heads of the Apostles declaring them thereby the Representatives of Christ on earth Under this notion Christ is worshipped by true and intelligent Christians This was the meaning of the Fathers in the Council of Constantinople who denounced Anathema against those who professed not that Christ ascended was Intellectual flesh neither properly flesh nor yet Incorporeal but visible to them who have pierc'd him without grossness of flesh They believ'd it a great point of Christianity that Jesus God-man sate in the Heavens in illustrious visible glory And this St. John saw in a Vision in which the Logos the God Omnipotent the King of Kings and Lord of Lords or Lamb God-man appeared on his Throne Crowned and with eyes like flames of fire To this effect is a saying of Eusebius cited by Bishop Andrews on the second Command I suppose he meaneth Eusebius Dorylaeus for he referreth to the second Ephesine Synod though I have not met with it in the Acts of that Council Eusebius it seems telleth Constantia That she must not any longer desire an Image of Christ as he is infirm man For now said he his Glory is much greater than it appeared on the Mount which if his Apostles were then dazled with how can it now be expressed This visible Glory of Christ the Ancients supposed situate in the Eastern part of the Heavens and it occasion'd as I think their directing of their worship towards the East The Gentiles who worshipped the Sun differed much from this external direction of their Faces For they respected especially the East-point by reason of the Sun-rising thence And often at other parts of the day they altered their posture They sometimes vall'd themselves saith Plutarch and turned themselves about with respect to the Heavenly motions And Trismegistus in Asclepio relates that it was a custom of some of the Gentile-Devotionists at mid-day to look towards the South and at Sun-set to look towards the West It was at the rising of the Sun when Lucian was turned towards it by Mithrobarzanes the Chaldaean Priest who mumbled his Prayers in a low and indistinct tone at the rising of that false God They respected not always the Eastern Angle though they had especial regard to it when the Sun appeared in it They respected also the South and West-points in their worship Hence Harpocrates a child represented amongst them the Sun in its rising Orus a young man the Sun in its Meridian Osiris an old man the Sun-setting This was also the way of the Manichees who supposed the Sun to be the Tabernacle of Christ. Of them St. Austin saith that their Prayers rolled about with the Sun But the Ancients thought the Shechinah of Christ more fixed and therefore did not in such manner alter their Quarter And that Quarter they esteemed proper to the Shechinah having read of the Messiah in the Old Testament under the name of the East and following the Translation of the Seventy which thus readeth Psalm 68. 33. Sing unto God who ascendeth above the Heaven of Heavens on the East They also esteemed Jerusalem the middle of the Earth and the parts which lay Easterly from thence they called the East and amongst them Eden about Mesopotamia And they had a Tradition that Christ was Crucified with his face towards the West but that he ascended with his face towards the East and went up to a place in the Heavenly Paradise standing as it were over that of the Earthly But whatsoever men may conceive of the space possessed by Christs meer body they ought not to think of his Shechinah as of a confined light in some one Quarter of the Heavens but as a glorious luster filling all Heavens and shining towards this Earth as a Circumference of Glory on a single point They ought to lose their imaginations in an Abyss of Light One saith and not amiss upon this subject That as Earth heightned unto a flame changeth not its place only but form and figure so the person of our Saviour was raised to a greatness a
He seemeth not to Platonize 165 408 Saw God what it means 335 336 Whether Osiris Bacchus Apis 125 c. Bishop Montague his opinion about praying to Saints Angels Guardian Angel 207 208 Mountains British Islands 28 Moon Its character on Apis not from the beginning 118 Muggleton 's gross Deity 221 309 310 N NAils of the Cross worshipped with Latria by C. Curtius 147 284 285 Nature Pliny 's and Spinosa 's Goddess 26 27 Called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 399 Negative honouring of Images 280 Neton in Macrobius is Mnevis 131 Nice Council second what it means by adoration of Images 288 S. Nicholas made a Guardian-Saint 231 Nocca a kind of Northern Neptune 16 Nous of Plato the Intellectual world 399 400 401 Numa 's Temple and fire in it what 48 53 His zeal against Images 59 The fire in his Temple why renewed each March 53 Nysa what place 128 O ONion of what kind the Idol of Egypt was 28 Ophites their Diagram 153 Of Orders of Angels 165 166 167 212 Origen of the power of words 4 Orpheus 's one God 56 Osiris Bacchus 129. Apis 130. Moses 131. Osarsyphus Disaris 131 144 Oxen how sacred 111 112 113 114 136 353. with their faces Cherubim appear'd 337 338 P PAgod what 410 Pamelius a false charge of his against Tertullian 332 Patrocinie of Saints 194 to 256 Pectoral a lesser Ark 351 Permiseer of the Benians 58 Of Petavius 's calling Arius a Platonist 77 396 Pictures of Christ crucified lawful 277 None of Saints departed as such possible 296 297 Of Gods Shechinah 383 to 387 Pillar of Fire and Cloud what 331 Pix carried as the Ark 296 Plato he own'd one God 57 58 Yet he was an Idolater 69 76 to 81 His Triad not the Christian Trin-unity 77 78 398 399 c. Whence it came 407 408 His Ideas what 78 79 399 c. His Daemons what kind of spirits 85 86 How far he own'd Providence 81 Platonism an occasion of Gnosticism 149 150 Plutarch's Translation mended Poets how causes of Idolatry 36 37 Polytheism what kind possible 411 Pluto who 124 Porphyry his reason for the worship of God by the image of a man 74 His Translation mended 86 His abstracted worship 96 His not owning the Gods to have been men 118 Prayer our Lords said to Saints 197 Of Socrates and Simplicius 63 To Saints if only to pray for us 192 to 196 c. To fictitious persons 207 259 To some of suspected Saintship 256 to 258 Real Presence 94 181 185 346 347 Profit that which did not profit in Jer. 2. 11. meant of an Idol 338 Providence its extent acc to Maimon 84 Purgatory Fire one probable occasion of the belief of it 378 Pyramids what 42 43 Pythagoras his two Principles 15 76 155 156 393 His Image among the Gnosticks 153 His Dogma of the Imnortality of the Soul not like Christs 409 410 The form of the Oath of his Disciples 405 406 His Tetractys not the Tetragrammaton a double Quaternary what it was 404 405 406. R RApine's excess of devotion towards the Virgin 249 Representations of God unmeet 272 273 Reprisal of all things at last into Gods substance the Cabala of the Pendets 36 Resora an Indian Idol 29 Revel 22. 9. its various reading 175 Rites of worship their indecence great number taxed 5 6 7 8 Romans their Religion when corrupted 59 S. Rosa made a Patroness 232 W. Rufus his Apparition 262 S. SAbbath designed against Idolatry 99 100 Sacrifices enjoined as a means against Idolatry 100 101 Saint-worship two occasions of it 217 218 219 220 Saints little mention of their appearing unraised in SS 206 Solomon 's beginning of Idolatry 103 342 Sanedrim above what 105 Saturday where and how sacred to the Virgin 249 Sandius his conceit about the Holy Ghost 399 Scarabee the Hieroglyphick of the Sun 19 Scaliger a mistake of his 364 Not Seen his shape what it means 373 Mr. Selden answered about the Antiquity of Apis 114 to 117 Semis a Northern Idol 125 Serapis Pluto 119 124 141 His image 91 120 Seraphim what 351 to 360 Serpent which seduced Eve what and in what form 354 355 Of the Brazen-serpent 359 360 Serpents sacred 352 353 Of the fiery flying kind 352 Servetus his Frenzies 158 Signs external Idolatry by them 286 to 290. what allow'd at Trent 285 Sleep of the soul 162 Sneezing Prayer at it 10 307 Socinians make Christ a kind of thinking Machine 169 170 Sons of God in Gen. 6. 1 2. what 39 Sophocles 's one God 56 Soul of the world an assistant form 35 394 395 Varro 's God 54 called the Father in Plato 394 408 Not very God as explain'd by Plato 401 402 403 Spalato his judgment concerning saint-Saint-worship 263 Spirit moving the Chaos whether a mighty wind 409 Spirits whence their worship 34 Squango an Enthusiast of New-England 75 Statues of Idols what 30 69 88 89 90 91 Sun and Moon the first Idols 47 48 Sun a statue 68 Several Hieroglyphicks of it 115 Called the divine Harp 71 And the seat of Christ 278 323 377 Superstition described 3 4 5 Of the Pharisees what 9 Syncellus refuted 119 Shechinah whence 372 T TAbernacle of Moloch what 102 Holy Table by some called the Ark 389 390 Temple of Solomon what 339. whence occasioned acc to S. Chrysost 329. and Maimon 340. Christ the Temple 374 375 Prayers towards the Temple 369 Teraphim Seraphim Urim the same 349 350 Tertullian 's opinion of Idolatry in Seth 's time 38 Tetractys of Pythagoras 405 406. of the Gnosticks 153 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what 373 S. Thomas of Canterbury a devout servant of the Virgins 245 His shirt said to be mended by her 261 His Saintship doubted 256 Thorn a German Idol 27 28 Mr. Thorndike his opinion of worshipping Idols as ultimate objects 95. of Romish Forms of Prayer 190 191. of Idolatry as unjustly charged on the Church of Rome 176. of the peril of Idolatry in it 203 Throne and Fund of Matter what 394 Thrones Principalities Powers c. in S. Paul what 165 to 167 Tillage of Egypt 136 137 Truth by Christ in Joh. 1. 17. what 365 Trinity of its appearing under the Old Covenant 318 328 Triad Platonick how one 398 Thummim what 347 348 349 350 351 361 to 365 Two why Seraphim in the Pect Two 356 V U VAtablus 's exp of Bama 43 Of the Angel of Greece 83 Ubiquity whether ascribed to Saints and Angels by the Worshippers of them 204 205 Tho. de Villa Nova a Guardian-Saint 232 233 Ulma it s many Guardian-spirits 220 221 Viretus 's mistake about Plato 's Image of God 73 H. Virgin Forms of Prayer to her 189 190 195 198 201 211 212 225 227 230 231 235 By some Romanists parallel'd with Christ 248 249 251 Origine of her worship 251 252 A general Patroness acc to R. Rapine 234 235. and acc to the Synod of Mexico 249 Her seven joys on earth and